Tourist arrivals to Asia Pacific up 5% 1Q

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) last week released  preliminary figures for international visitor arrivals into Asia and the Pacific1 for the first quarter of 2011. The results show a year-on-year increase of five per cent. The sharp fall in arrivals to Japan following the 11 March earthquake and tsunami, coupled with the decline in arrivals from the Middle East and North Africa, contributed to the subdued three per cent growth seen for the whole region in March.

International visitor arrivals to South Asia grew by 10 per cent in March and 13% in the first quarter. All the leading destinations in the Indian-subcontinent – India, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka – reported double-digit growth for the quarter.

Southeast Asia (+10%) also had a strong quarter after recording growth of 10% in arrivals for the month of March. The majority of the destinations in the sub-region reported strong positive results, particularly Myanmar (+30%), Cambodia (+18%) and Thailand (+14%).

Northeast Asia on the other hand registered a sharply slower growth of three per cent for the quarter, depressed by the subdued one per cent growth in arrivals for the month of March. The devastating earthquake and tsunami hurt Japan’s inbound and outbound travel flows and neighbouring destinations including China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Korea (ROK) recorded subsequent declines in Japanese visitors for the quarter.

International arrivals to the Pacific, hurt by a weak result in March (-3%), still managed to record growth of three per cent in the first quarter 2011. Increases in arrivals to the leading Pacific destinations of Australia and New Zealand, were flat and negative respectively. However, this was somewhat offset by positive growth recorded by each of Kiribati, Palau, Hawaii and New Caledonia.

Bill Calderwood, the Interim CEO of PATA, said: “After recovering strongly from recession-hit 2008/09, the travel and tourism industry in Asia Pacific has once again been confronted with many challenges in the first quarter of the year. These challenges included rising oil prices, political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, and natural disasters in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.”

PATA believes that, at five per cent, Asia Pacific’s inbound growth for the first quarter of the year was a good result given the circumstances. Growth was supported by the key origin markets of China, Korea (ROK) and India as well as by the strong intra-regional flows in the Southeast Asia sub-region. The long-haul origin markets performed well too, with arrivals from Europe growing by a relatively healthy six per cent for the first quarter. However, results were mixed for the leading European origin markets – the Russian Federation (+25%), France (+9%), the UK (–5%) and Germany (–1%). Arrivals from the US grew by five per cent, while overall arrivals from the Americas increased by about seven per cent.

Calderwood added: “It is now over two months since the earthquake and tsunami hit the coast of Tohoku region in Japan and the situation appears to be slowly returning to normal. Thankfully, many countries have eased travel restrictions. The larger part of Japan remains physically unaffected by the disaster,” he said.

Strong new hotels pipeline in Asia Pacific

According to the April 2011 STR Global Construction Pipeline Report, the hotel development pipeline in Asia Pacific comprises 1,167 hotels totalling 291,946 rooms.

“Two mega cities in India, the capitals of the Philippines and Thailand, and Bali, the holiday island, are currently scheduled to see the largest expected hotel room growth compared to their existing supply of key Asian markets,” said Elizabeth Randall, managing director of STR Global. “Manila, Mumbai and New Delhi have less existing room supply (about and below 20,000 rooms) than other Asian markets, which provides opportunities for growth and diversification of the hotel offering.”

Among the key markets in the region, New Delhi, India, ended the month with the largest expected room growth (+48.5%) if all 9,931 rooms in the total active pipeline open. Other markets to report significant expected growth include: Manila, Philippines (+28.2% with 5,019 rooms in the total active pipeline); Mumbai, India (+20.6% with 3,801 rooms); Bali, Indonesia (+13.7% with 4,319 rooms); and Bangkok, Thailand (+12.9% with 7,413 rooms).